10 great technologies to secretly install on Mom's PC

Streamline her desktop, protect her precious data, and put a smile on her face.

She's your mom. She's risen to every challenge, not the least of which was raising you to be the fine, upstanding PC enthusiast you are today.

Yet despite all of Mom's successes, you're still the go-to techie in the family. With Mother's Day just around the corner, it's your turn to streamline her desktop, protect her precious data, and put a smile on her face. Just install these apps and gadgets on Mom's computer, and surprise her with a much better PC experience on Sunday morning.

Originally a troubleshooter and startup manager, Soluto is now a remote IT service. You can use it on her PC alone, or install it on yours first so you can remotely perform Mom's Windows updates, install apps, and check for problems.

If you're all on Google+, you can have family video chats with as many people as you can crowd around nine webcams. The new Remote Desktops feature can help if you need to troubleshoot her PC from afar, too.

Maybe Mom prefers to pretend that Google is still just a search engine. Skype works for both phone and video calls. Whether you use the standard version or the special one for Windows 8, you can't beat its simplicity. It's free to call other Skype accounts, and inexpensive to call non-Skypers.

Mom doesn't need to store files of paper receipts. With the NeatReceipts scanner, she can scan receipts and then export them to Excel, Quicken, or Turbo Tax. Quite a boon for someone who remembers balancing her checking account with pencil and paper.

Mom's gaming experience is not hampered by a slow graphics card. PopCap Games has shifted toward developing for mobile and social gamers, but you can still purchase the good old PC versions of Bejeweled 3 and word game Bookworm Adventures Volume 2 to play on older PCs.

Suppose that Mom got a Windows 8 PC as a holiday gift from some well-meaning, well-off, but less-well-versed-in-tech-than-you offspring. She's probably been politely hating its lack of a Start button since December.